Prof. Chasan, in response to my suggestion to Don Satz:

>It is received wisdom that Eine Alpensinfonie is a bombastic and empty
>potboiler.  This is IMHO, nonsense - it is a masterpiece, and it is good
>to see Tim citing it.  A great strength of Alec Ross' New Yorker article
>is that he actually LISTENED to the tone poems, including this one.

I have two specific recordings Don might like to try (and the Prof, if
he doesn't already have them).  The Alpensinfonie recording which, for me,
dispels any thought that it could EVER have been thought an 'also-ran' is
a December 1980 recording with von Karajan leading the Berlin Phil.  This
is a simply awesome recording, often played at high volume late at night
when I lived in California and could do that sort of thing without the
neighbors playing merry hell!  It's on Deutsche Grammophon 'Karajan Gold
Edition' 439 017-2

The other recording, also DG but this time in the 'Originals' series
(447 422-2) is again von K and the Berliners, playing Tod und Verklarung
and Metamorphosen (which from memory is where this started) and then
Gundula Janowitz with an incredible rendering of the four last songs.
The recordings are from 1971 and 1974 but are truly stupendous -- well
worth searching out.

As an aside, Metamorphosen is one of those pivotal pieces for me which,
given the right circumstances, can be almost epiphanous (if there is
such an adjective).  When Sinopoli brought the Staatskapelle Dresden to
California a few years ago I had the pleasure of doing the preview for
their concert, which was revelatory (a Bruckner 4 followed the Strauss.) My
date that evening scoffed at the program, declaring that she never listened
to anything after Beethoven.  Metamorphosen changed her mind big time -- to
the extent that she is now buying any Stravinsky and Part she can get her
hands on (and how she got there from Strauss is beyond me.  but at least
it's post-Ludwig!)

Give it a try, Don -- after all, I'm going to revisit Schubert as a result
of your comment about the piano sonatas this evening (and, I have to admit,
having just reviewed the cpo set of six discs of the string quartets has
reminded me of the fellow's genius)

Cheers

Tim Mahon
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